Press Release

Replacement Trees Planted on Historic Avenue of the Pines

State Parks Collaborate with Odwalla, Inc. and Its Plant a Tree Program To Help Facilitate the Initiative

(Saratoga Springs, NY) Saratoga Spa State Park has teamed up with Odwalla, via the 2010 Plant a Tree program, to replenish white pine trees along the stately Avenue of the Pines at the National Historic Landmark park. Through Odwalla's Plant a Tree program, a public-private partnership between Odwalla and State Parks to help with important reforestation and planting initiatives, Saratoga Spa State Park obtained over two dozen trees for planting.

"We need to periodically plant young trees if we are to sustain the towering column of pines as the iconic entrance to the park," said Alane Ball Chinian, Regional Director for New York State Parks Saratoga-Capital Region. "With Odwalla's Plant a Tree Program, this successful partnership has generously provided over two dozen six-foot white pines to fill in the spots along the Avenue where mature trees have died and been removed."

The collaboration between Odwalla and New York State Parks is in its third year and has included the web-based Plant a Tree program and a supply of Odwalla food bars for use at select park events and activities throughout several park regions in the state. The national web-based promotion encouraged visitors to the Odwalla.com site to designate which of the 50 state park systems they would like to have trees planted. In New York, the resulting earmarked funds were committed for tree purchases in the Saratoga-Capital region.

The Avenue of the Pines was originally constructed as a mile-long pedestrian path, planted with four rows of white pines, and historically known as the Pine Promenade. In 1929, when the current Lincoln Bathhouse was built, other improvements were undertaken in the parks. The Pine Promenade was enlarged and paved and opened as a parkway for automobiles. By this time, the pines planted years before had grown high, and the parkway was appropriately renamed "The Avenue of Pines."